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Grace Abbott
Adrienne Moos In the early twentieth century, immigrants arriving in the United States were exploited because of a lack of laws and supervision. However, many individuals cared deeply for the new people; one of them was Grace Abbott. Her work as director of the Immigrants Protective League at Hull-House improved the conditions for many immigrants to the United States. Her work began in 1908 when she joined Hull-House and the Immigrants Protective League. As a student working at Hull-House, she was commis- One of the objectives at Hull-House was to offer vocational training so that underpriveleged individuals and newly arrived immigrants could become productive members of society. In this photo, young boys learn shoemaking in a class at Hull-House.
sioned to make the survey of the local immigrants, and she uncovered appalling abuses. Her findings led to the exposure and subsequent end to an international trafficking in prostitution. Later, as director of the Immigrants Protective League, Grace Abbott made many changes to help immigrants adjust better to the United States. The league placed multi-lingual people in train-station waiting rooms to help translate. In addition, night schools, immigrant banks, and employment agencies were investigated. Private employment agencies were found to be exploiting the immigrants. Abbott went to Springfield, Illinois, to help regulate these agencies. Not long after Grace Abbott joined Hull-House and the Immigrants Protective League, she began to support liberal immigration policies and speak out about the "new immigrants" from Eastern and Southern Europe. Older immigrants were from Western Europe. During testimony before a congressional committee, she disputed the claim that new immigrants were different from adjusted immigrants. She believed the government looked past all the immigrants' commendable qualities and believed that they were in the United States only to earn better wages. To minimize immigration the government considered requiring a literacy test for admission. Abbott strongly objected to proposed legislation, for she believed that immigrants were not different from United States citizens. Some were good and upstanding, while some were not. Abbott also worked with the United States government to help the immigrants while she was at Hull-House. In 1911 the problem of immigrant exploitation began to be solved through closer federal supervision and better state legislation. Studies at that time showed the immigrants' actual living and social conditions. Crime and disease were not more prevalent among immigrants than with United States citizens. Immigrant homes were in good condition and many of the immigrants' children went to school. Abbott was very optimistic about the "new immigrants." To help them escape poverty and religious persecution, she wanted to keep the sea ports open to them. Abbott improved the lives of numerous people throughout the world because she gave them a safe country for immigration. Without her dedication to the immigrants, many United States citizens would still be living in bad conditions due to the exploitation of their ancestors or they would be in a different country living in poverty. Abbott worked very hard to lead the immigrants to a better life.—[From G. Abbott, "Adjustment - not Restriction," Survey; M.L.M. Bryan and A. F. Davis, eds., 100 Years at Hull-House; W. L. Cheney, "Grace Abbott of Nebraska," New Republic (1923); R. P. Howard, Illinois: A History of the Prairie State; "Personal," American Journal of Sociology, (1939).]
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